Its' not often you can go to a tiny city venue and see an amazing band that is clearly too good for the walls holding it in. But last night, a Tuesday of all days, for a whopping $10 per ticket, Jaye and I went to Chop Suey in Seattle to see A Place to Bury Strangers.
It’s not that they were polished and slick in performance; actually they were the exact opposite…rough and loud and perfect because of it.
This band has gotten a fair amount of MOG love lately and for an extremely good reason; amazingly focused, the men of APTBS put out their unique shoegazery with aplomb. They don’t seem to care whether you liked it or not, rarely looking at the audience for their reactions, seemingly totally into their music.With barely (and sometimes not) suppressed violence they murmured and strummed and loudly beat their musical expressions into our auditory cortex, accompanied by strobe lights and smoke machines, making it a strangely eerie and hypnotic experience.
Maybe it was a fault of the venue, but the Seattle show was missing the images projected over and behind the band, which I’m just slightly disappointed because. It’s hard for me to get too worked up over this because the show was just too good for disappointment. I loved it, every moment of it from the first throbbing bass line to the guitar string tearing to the last curl of mist slinking off the stage. Lovely.
Afterwards, I told Jono how amazing their show was and he was gracious and friendly, asking me if I got any pictures (and I really hope I wasn’t irritating or distracting with my camera…I never use a flash because I think it’s rude, but he obviously noticed and I wish I could apologize if I were a problem) and giving us pointers on color vs. black and white and the challenges in photographing their shows. Pointers given after the show, I might add…pointers I’ll have to use next time.And there will be a next time. I’ll give APTBS many listens in the future and will see them again, in a heartbeat. So, Pekka and Dale and any other MOGGERs out there smart enough to catch these guys in the next few weeks: ENJOY!
Comments (30)